The English military official Norman Lewis, who has become a well-known writer after the war, returns to Naples after many years. He had lost his heart to the city all those years before, and in its modern streets he now revisits stories from the past that occurred there, and sees an enthralling and absolutely unforgettable procession of characters parade before his eyes, like the women in feathered hats milking goats amid the rubble, statues of saints carried aloft by adoring crowds to stop the eruption of Vesuvius, and professionals who are now bankrupt, surviving only by impersonating wealthy, aristocratic uncles from Rome at funerals.